Awakening Men to Purpose

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What's working on Purpose anyway? Each
week we ponder the answer to this question.

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People ache for meaning and purpose at
work, to contribute their talents passionately

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and know their lives really matter.
They crave being part of an organization that

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inspires them and helps them grow into
realizing their highest potential. Business can be

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such a force for good in the
world, elevating humanity. In our program,

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we provide guidance and inspiration to help
usher in this world we all want.

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Working on Purpose now. Here is
your host, doctor Elise Cortes.

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Welcome back to Working on Purpose program. Thanks for tuning in again this week.

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Great to have you. I'm doctor
LuSE Cortes, your host. Join

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You live from Dallas, which is
home base for me. If you don't

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know me, I'm a management consultants
seizing in meaning and purpose, organizational logo

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therapist, inspirational speaker, social scientist, and author. You learn more about

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me and how we can work together
at a Lascarretes dot com, Orgustodashnow dot

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com. Let me thank my partner
and sponsor work proud. We are a

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perfect collaboration. Everyone wants to know
they matter and that their work they do

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is meaningful. And appreciated. Work
Proud is a mobile platform built to encourage

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employees to share stories and recognize each
other's contribution. Work Proud empowers hr and

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business leaders to help create company cultures
where all employees are inspired to feel proud

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of their work and proud of their
company. Learn more at workproud dot com.

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With us today is Gabriel Kazan,
a transformational men's coach, speaker,

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writer, and thought leader in the
space between mythic imagination and embodiment. He

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is a trauma and art therapist living
in the mountains of Western Canada, currently

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working on a book entitled The Wholehearted
Man, Unclenched from the Fear so you

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can claim purpose and personal freedom with
balls, backbone and heart. He joins

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us from Nelson, British Columbia and
Canada. Gabriel, Welcome to Working on

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Purpose. Thank you so much.
Great to be here with you. I'm

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so glad to catch you. I'm
happy that we met through our common Global

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Purpose Leaders group here and you were
willing to come on and share what you're

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up to. I'm very interested in
what you're doing, in part because you

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might remember that I am just now
launching an anthology focused on men and sharing

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their stories of how they discover and
are lipping from their purpose and then I

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smack right into you. So this
ought to be a fun conversation. So

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for this first segment, what we
want to talk about is why men need

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to do this work and really the
opportunity that it presents. So that's what

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I want to focus on for this. And so, as you well know,

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I read things cover to cover when
I come on and prep for these

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conversations, and I really appreciate you
you shared your ebook with me, and

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so let's just start with what you
say here. You say men are in

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crisis, a crisis of roles,
expectations, and conflicting signals. Three out

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of four suicides are men, and
the numbers of men taking their own lives

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has been increasing. As men,
we are in a potent time shape shifting

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our identities by descending into the mud
of our humanness. Can you say more

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about what you mean by that and
why this work is so important? Yeah,

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I'd love to, Well, which
part is the question? I like?

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The maybe entering into the mud?
Yeah, and the descent, because

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that's really where my approach to this
work comes in. Is Uh, you

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know, working with men on purpose
is often a process of coming in and

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down rather than up and out.
And that's what I think of when I

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think of the Mud is a descent
into our our humanness and the messiness of

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that, the mistakes. Often I
find men coming to me when they're in

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crisis. That could be a divorce, it could be, you know,

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an illness, could be a major
transition like a loss. Essentially, it

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often involves a real kick in the
ass from life, and that could have

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something to do with grief. Grief
is another big entry point where men go

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through a death and need to ask
themselves all over again, well who am

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I now? You know, something
brings them to their knees and and that's

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what that's when they get to recalibrate
and say, yeah, well who am

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I here? And and then that's
where things get really powerful. Mm hmm.

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And one of the things that you
and I have in common in both

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working in the purpose space is we
both know that and you talk about this

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too in your book. You say
making your purpose matter is the remedy for

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depression, anxiety, addiction, existential
angst, heartbreak, relationship loss, all

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kinds of trauma. Learn helplessness and
a host of other issues here Here,

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Gabriel completely agree with that much cheaper
than therapy as well regular therapy or any

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kind of drugs too, for that
matter. So you say more a bit

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more about why this is such a
great remedy. Well, see, I've

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been a therapist for five years specializing
in men and men's issues. But here's

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what I see. And in terms
of therapy, I like to come back

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to the words of James Hillman,
who was a bit of a warrior within

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the field of therapy because he wasn't
afraid to poke fun at the limitations of

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therapy. And he wrote a book
called We've had one hundred years of psychotherapy

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and the World's getting worse. And
the title of that says says enough.

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And so that's also what I started
to notice in my practice is that you

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know, men will come in to
see me and they'll dip into their troubles

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and their traumas, but there's no
accountability, there's no follow through. And

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from what I've seen, the men
who actually go deep enough to find out

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and clarify what their purpose is are
the ones who go further, faster through

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their troubles and forward into creating the
success in their life. And once they

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are aligned with that purpose, that
sort of personal power linked to the mission

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of unfolding that purpose, then the
troubles and traumas kind of silence themselves.

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They turn their volume down because he's
got his direction. And that could be

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you know, in relationship or in
work and purpose and career. Both it's

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a both, and as we know, there's an intersection of personal growth and

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professional growth. And that's what I
see as the pendulum swings for men between

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those polls of you know, just
stepping into more courage to show up for

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who they are, because at the
end of the day, in the purpose

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work field, there can be this
mystical assumption that purpose is something outside of

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us. It's out there, I
need to go find it, It's like,

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and I like to dispel that myth
from time to time and remind my

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people that you are your purpose like
you are your purpose. So really just

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getting more clear around who you are
now, maybe not who you were five

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years ago or two years or even
two months ago, but right now,

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what is life asking of you and
bringing that fire of presence into the question

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so that men can make bold and
decisive changes and get the outcome state that

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they're looking for. I love that
fire of presence. That's so great,

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and that kind of stands just I
wanted just to quickly surface. You talk

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about waking up men from sedation,
and certainly I have been a member of

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the Walking Dead by the way,
so I was a card caring member.

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I know what that feels like,
and it did actually help to go through

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my divorce to kind of get me
out of that. So so this whole

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idea of waking up from sedation,
Yeah, Well, another way to word

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it is default purpose. And when
we're the walking dead, we're often living

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out a program that is someone else's, it's not ours, and that's what

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makes us feel dead. So that's
when the transition from default purpose or living

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a life by default like towards a
purpose driven growth where all aspects are aligned

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and there's a straightness and a clarity
to that trajectory. Yeah. So the

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sedation, I think it's easy to
fall into because we're not really taught how

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to know who we are. We're
not encouraged too, we're just encouraged to

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go do it. I've been in
rooms where there's hundreds of businessmen in one

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room, and when they asked,
like, how did you get to be

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doing the business you're doing now?
By default or by design? Fifty percent

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of the room is by default,
you know, fifty percent, Like half

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the hands went up by default.
They're just like I just ended up here,

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just ended up here, you know. And there's a way, there's

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a way we can make that work. You can find excellence in a default

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purpose to a point, but there
comes a limit when usually some powerful crisis

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needs to emerge to awaken us from
that sedation and and then say, actually,

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this is not what I'm here for. And maybe it was for a

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while, but I'm going for who
I am. And there's a mythic image

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of the hunter who discovers the golden
feather on the trail, and his horse

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is a talking horse, because it's
a myth says, if you pick up

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that golden feather, you will know
trouble and you will know grief. And

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the question is will you pick up
that feather? And the feather, of

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course, represents the genius and the
heat of that that that one shiny thing

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that so few are willing to say
yes to, to pick that up that

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one shiny thing and say I'm all
in. I'm going to get all in

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on this shiny thing. And in
the Firebirds story, which is the myth

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I'm telling, the hunter picks that
up and he goes and shows it to

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the king. So he brings it
right to the center of the realm,

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the center of his being, his
psyche in the story structure, and he

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faces the trouble. So that's the
trouble, is the call to pick up

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that thing, that that thing that's
calling you. Okay, that's going to

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get me right into where I want
to go next. One of the things

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that you had said to me when
we first were on the phone getting a

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pointed talking about this conversation, you
mentioned that you had done some work reading

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David Dida's work, and so of
course I picked up the book and I

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read most of it over the weekend, and I wanted you to comment on

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this passage that I thought was very
compelling. This comes from the way of

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the Superior Man book. He says, some men fear the feeling of fear,

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and therefore don't even approach their edge. They choose a job they know

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they can do well and easily,
and don't even approach the fullest giving of

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their gift. Their lives are relatively
secure and comfortable, but dead, they

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lack theliveness of the depth, the
inspirational energy that is the sign of a

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man living at his edge. Beautiful. Yeah, yeah, I mean,

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I think DTA presents like a wild
card in the field of men's work and

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men's personal growth work because he said
so much that nobody else was willing to

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say or could even articulate when he
started putting his workout. And it's provocative

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because he pokes at the wounds of
all this sedation that for so long men

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have been put in a position of
comfort and not challenged. Men need challenge

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in order to rise and need that
accountability. Actually, men need to be

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confronted by truthmere to look in the
truth mirror and say, where am I

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lying to myself? Where in my
life am I dead? And am I

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willing to move through that and stop
lining myself to clean up my chaos and

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to start to own it. And
I think that's what Dita's getting at is

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is the challenge to if you're not
living your purpose now, then your purpose

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must be to find your purpose,
which is a purpose in itself. Is

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that unfoldment because as we know,
purpose is somehow paradoxically always the same because

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it's unique to each person, but
it's always changing as we move through the

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phases of life. And you know, it's like it's kind of like expression

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something. Yeah, well, I
like actually you actually say this. And

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the way you situate your work is
you talk about that you're in terms of

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your approach to purpose coaching is to
disrupt the way men live their lives.

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That's exactly what you're doing with them. Yeah. Yeah, And see that's

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the slippery part is they have to
be open to that disruption. They have

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to say, yes, I'm lying
to myself and I need help. I

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need someone to hold me accountable.
I need someone to put me between that

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rock and that hard place so that
I pushed through this stuck place, this

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sedated place, this dead zone of
where I've I've fallen into depression or addiction.

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Yeah, that those are whole other
you know, major things beyond grief.

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There's there's those other troubles of depression, anxiety, and addiction, which

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can you know, you can get
by with for a while, but unless

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you go deep and do the grief
work and the anger transformation work underneath those

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problems. Then you're just gonna be
spinning your wheels. And so what I've

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found is that transformational coaching is a
greater gift for me to be able to

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give because I get to hold men
accountable because they've made a bigger commitment to

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getting the outcomes, whereas in therapy
they might might show up and then it's

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like, well, so what you
know, they get to choose whether they

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come back to see me one at
a time. And what I love is

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seeing men come alive. And I've
seen it. I've seen men transform their

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lives from having the brink of a
divorce or you know, being so utterly

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stressed out by their work that they
can't see their life clearly, and then

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through working with me, get clearer
and clearer around what they need to say

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no to where they need to ask
for help. Yeah, because for many

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men, asking for help is a
taboo. We're taught not to We're taught

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to tough en up, we can
do it all ourselves. We're supposed to

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be figuring it all out. But
that nothing could be further from the truth.

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Asking for help is a power move. I love that and a great

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way to go into our first break. Gabriel I'm Alice Cortez, your host.

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We've been in the air with Gabriel
Kazan, a transformational men's coach,

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speaker, writer, thought leader in
the space between mythic imagination and embodiment.

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We've been talking a bit about why
men need to do this work and how

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they win. After the break,
we're going to get into his approach to

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purpose coaching. Stay with us,
We'll be right back. Doctor Release Cortes

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is a management consultant specializing in meaning
and purpose, operational speaker, and author.

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She helps companies visioneer for greater purpose
among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired leadership

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and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and commitment within the workforce.

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To learn more or to invite Elise
to speak to your organization, please

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visit her at elisecortes dot com.
Let's talk about how to get your employees

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working on purpose. This is working
on Purpose with doctor Elise Cortes. To

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reach our program today or open a
conversation with Alise, send an email to

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Aleise Alise at elisecortes dot com.
Now back to working on purpose. Thanks

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for stating with us, and welcome
back to working on purpose. As I

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watched the pandemic continue on. I've
looked for ways to help company support their

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employees handle their anxiety, stress,
depression and feeling disconnected, while also helping

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to lift and inspire them with ongoing
professional development. So we now offer a

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well being learning series called Grab Your
Gusto Vita Wellbeing from the inside Out.

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You can learn more about it at
at Leastcortes dot com or send me an

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email to at least Cortes dot com
if you're just joining the program. My

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guest is Gabriel Kazan, a transformational
men's coach, speaker, writer, and

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thought leader in the space between mythic
imagination and embodiment. He is currently writing

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a book titled The Wholehearted Man,
Unclinched from Fear, so you can claim

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your purpose and personal freedom with balls, backbone and heart. You joined us

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today from Nelson, British Columbia in
Canada. I'm your host, Doctor Lose

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Cortes, and I love the title
of that book, all right. So

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you started to say something before that
I really want to grab and I think

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this is a little bit of resting
for people, and that's why I want

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to make sure we cover it.
You say that your purpose may be connected

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to your primal wound as a man, and aligning with purpose takes commitment,

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courage, and accountability. That's why
you need to war your up to a

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sobering, eagle eye view of your
life. So first this idea of wound.

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What do you mean by wound?
I think I have an idea,

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but let's hear it from our listeners
and viewers. Well, that's a great

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question. Thanks for clarifying that,
because you know, I think I think

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the dominant culture generally likes to deny
wounds and deny pain or discomfort. We

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like to put band aids on things. Yes we do, and just override,

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override the pain and maybe take a
pain killer and just keep going.

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So to track wounds are to invoke
that is actually to slow down and start

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to look at where our pain comes
from with a different angle. And so,

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yeah, when I say wounds,
I mean the deeper questions of like

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what's driving me, what's driving my
life? And usually at the root of

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it is some kind of question of
worthiness that we can you know, go

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way back to look at family of
origin stuff, you know, mommy stuff

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or daddy's stuff, and the question
is like who's approval am I seeking by

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driving my life in a certain direction? What am I trying to gain or

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achieve? And you know, there's
a saying, if we don't tend our

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wounds, then we project them into
the world and then and then they can,

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yeah, and they can run our
lives. So I don't want to,

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you know, be stuck in some
pity party staring at my wounds,

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you know, but we do need
to go in and down and tend them

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because there's trapped emotional energy in there. There's grief, there's fear, there's

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sadness, and there's anger in there. And so when we can open up

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a space enough to go in and
find out what that is, what's that

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voice inside, that flame in that
trapped energy, and listen to it,

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it can give us direction. And
then we reach a place of being both

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broken and unbreakable. Mostly there's a
denial of being broken, of not wanting

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to face that feeling that I'm maybe
fundamentally flawed or that I'm wounded. There's

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a want to quickly deny that.
But I say, We've got to go

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through the paradox of feeling the feels, feeling the blisters. Joseph Campbell said

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follow your bliss, which is true, and I'll encourage that that's going to

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lead you to your purpose. It's
that one golden feather, that shiny thing,

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But don't for get that you're going
to need to follow your blisters along

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the way, which is the ouch
spaces, the upper limit problem that we

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bump up against when we actually are
ready to expand into a new level of

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success or abundance or freedom or happiness, and then something self sabotages that.

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Unless we do our wound work well
and marry the sense of being broken with

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also being unbreakable both, then we're
going to be stuck. So I work

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with both the spirit of being bulletproof
and unbreakable, but I'm not going to

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deny or override the need to actually
tend those deeper waters so that we can

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get really clean and clear on what
are our emotional drivers underneath our purpose.

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Because there's the strategic and the tactical
around purpose unfoldment, whether it's running a

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business or navigating career choices or a
marriage, but underneath are the deeper drivers.

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And if you try and move the
tactical without engaging the deeper drivers,

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it's like being a rider on an
elephant, and the rider can't move the

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elephant unless the elephant is willing to
go. And that's the emotional body,

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that's the deeper longing. So yeah, what are the question I have is

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what are the deeper emotional charges that
are pushing your purpose forward? You know?

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And our listeners like, what is
that for you? You know?

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For some it's freedom, for some
it's love, for some it's belonging.

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But it's good to know what it
is and that way it helps you kind

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of clean your wheelhouse, so to
speak, and be really clear. And

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once you claim that alignment with this
is what I'm here for and these are

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the tactics and strategies that I'm going
to fulfill, that life gets easier and

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roads open up absolutely right well,
and to that in, I just wanted

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to give our listeners and viewers kind
of a breadth of what it is that

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you do. Obviously we can't go
super deep on these because we don't have

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too much time. And this is
your program, but the way that you

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go about helping the men that you
coach, you have these four keys to

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thriving life, love, and business. And I want to I'll say a

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little something about each one of these. First is aligned with your purpose,

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then live your creativity, unclinch from
your fear, and get all in with

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your inner king. So let's talk
about the first one. First, align

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with your purpose. So your purpose
statement is a living expression of the power

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of your soul contract with the world, you say, which I think is

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beautiful, and it has your connection
with your genius encoded in it. It

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will naturally become multifaceted and evolve over
time, which you alluded to before.

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But can you say a little bit
more about this first key that you work

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from. Yes, yeah, So
alignment is totally essential, just like really

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getting back to what are the emotional
drivers and then working in a reverse engineering

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fashion. One way I like to
support people get really aligned with purpose work

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is to befriend their death and say, yeah, well, write your obituary

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as if you're going to die tomorl
for one thing, and then see what

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it says, Oh, oh that's
what my life has been. Oh okay,

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And then write your obituary again as
if you lived life to your fullest

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and gave your gift fully and we're
fully satisfied with everything you got to do.

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So touching in with death can bring
a kind of urgency into the contract

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of like, oh, that's what
I need to fulfill while I'm here.

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And then what rises to the service
when we write that second obituary is the

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alignment piece. Oh okay, there
are gifts I haven't given yet and things

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I need to say. I need
to take some courageous imperfect action, you

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know, and make some massive changes
in so that I can really show up

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fully and live a life fully expressed. Which is which is what I want

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for the people I serve, is
to just do that. You know,

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have that me too, and really
quick on the whole purpose. Purpose works

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in part because we don't know our
expiress date and how long we get to

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live. That's a big reason why
purpose works so well. That is the

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urgency piece. And so I had
an undertaker on my show talking about this,

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and it is one of the magic
elixtures that actually does make it work.

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So I love what you say,
getting friendly with your death. So

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love that. Okay, your second
key is creativity, and you say,

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the secret to your creativity is having
support and tools to remove blocks, prevent

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distraction and interruption, to create movement
when things get stuck. This is where

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the sacred marriage of wildness and discipline
come together. Sounds good to me,

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Well, I guess so. I'm
trained as an art therapist, so the

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flow of creativity and inspiration has always
been an interest in mine. And then

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the disc and is how to structure
that, you know, how to create

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time blocks that are uninterrupted where you
can get into a flow state and work

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on that project you know, and
really feel maximize your production in a way

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that satisfies. That's that's I think
working with the muses and working with creative

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energy and containing it. The wildness
and discipline metaphor is also comes from the

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mythic literature on initiation. Is there's
always a hero's journey where we go into

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the swamp land, or we go
to the forest's edge, or we go

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into some other world, some underworld, and that's wild because we need to

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reclaim something there. We need to
recover some elicks or some gift and then

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bring it back to the king right
or bring it back to the queen,

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bring it back to the courtyard to
have it seen in the world. And

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so there's always this arc the mythic
literature between the structure of the work,

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the world, the court, and
the forest. Uh, the discipline and

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the wildness, and staying in touch
with both is essential for for the spirit,

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you know, so that you're you're
connected with your inspiration and what that

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that still small voice is wanting to
create through you? Mm hm. For

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me, my leave, my lever
is is the emotion of awe. Being

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able to immerse yourself in some kind
of a situation or experience that allows you

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to experience the emotion of awe.
Because when we experience awe, it's just

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the the the sheer experience of it
changes the mental models in our brain to

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make sense of it, and it
expands us. It opens something. So

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for me, that's how it's my
connection to that. And so what I

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find so interesting right is this is
your unique sauce, your unique way to

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be, your recipe for for doing
this work. And I never tire hearing

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this stuff, by the way,
can you tell it's great? All right?

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So number three is unclinched from fear, And this is so great what

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you say here, because I know
that this four letter word scares a lot

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of people, men and women both. So unclinched from fear, you say,

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fear is the absence of love.
Fear gets into the body and hides

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while creating holding patterns that can keep
us out of alignment with our highest purpose,

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which is the unfoldment of our gifts. Naming fears is the first step

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in the process of unclinching from their
power grip. There are many types of

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fear. You talk about failure,
ridicule, being seen, an annihilation,

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rocking about, et cetera. This
fear stuff is really important work. I'm

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really curious to get your perspective on
how you work with fear. Well,

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it's kind of it's kind of obviously
it's different, you know, depending on

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who I'm working with, and I'm
going to really orient to what's alive for

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them. But another way of looking
at fear is that it's it's also just

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wherever I feel unsafe, you know, Like am I safe? It's a

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question of safe and there's the ternal
kind of struggle between freedom and security,

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and often in our identity, which
is the self, which is where my

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wheelhouse is is we have character armor
that keeps us feeling safe, like,

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oh, I'm safe because I'm going
to wear this mask for now and I'm

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just gonna But there always comes a
point where that character armor or the persona

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has to crack open and something deeper, some well of truth needs to flow

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from underground and upset that structure.
So unclenching from fear isn't embody practice.

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And I talk about it from the
ground up and about noticing where in the

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body are the holding patterns, like
am I am I biting my tongue when

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I should be having my voice?
Am I tense in my shoulders? Or

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am I clenching my fists? Everybody
has a different place in their body where

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they store fear. So hunting fear
is about going in and downtracking it through

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the body and then finding it and
bringing presence to it, opening up saying

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what do you need? Is what
does this feeling need? And you know,

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maybe it's a tightness in the tummy
or a tightness in the chest.

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So it's kind of it's a yoga, it's a it's an embody practice.

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It's a martial art. It's a
way of moving and then and then finding

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out where to take a stand and
confront that fear and see it for what

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it is, because sometimes it can
come into the body like fear lines,

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like like it feels like there's a
contracts in the world, that keep us

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small, that keep us hiding,
that keep us shrinking, or invisible or

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voiceless, whatever those contracts are,
whether they're relationships, jobs, professional peers,

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and then seeing where we're giving our
power away, and then seeing where

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those fear lines come in, and
then just clipping them kind of one at

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a time, and say, what
would happen if I just clipped that one?

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What would happen if I gave myself
permission to be who I am and

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speak my truth, the truth that's
bubbling up right now in my life.

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And so that's what the practice of
hunting fear or unclenching from fear comes from,

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a somatic trauma embodied practice. Hmm. In fact, that we could

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go several layers on that, but
well, they'll just have to come back

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for more conversations. So let's grab
our last break. I'm Alice Cortez,

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your host. We've been on the
year with Gabriel Kazan, a transformational men's

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coach, speaker, writer, and
thought leader in a space between mythic imagination

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and embodiment. We've been talking a
bit about his approach to how he coaches

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men. After the break, we're
going to get into the real muck of

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purpose work. Stay with us,
We'll be right back. Doctor release Cortez

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is a management consultant specializing in meaning
and purpose and inspirational speaker and author.

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She helps companies visioneer for greater purpose
among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired leadership and

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meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment,
performance, and commitment within the workforce.

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To learn more or to invite Elise
to speak to your organization, please visit

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00:32:14.839 --> 00:32:19.599
her at elisecortes dot com. Let's
talk about how to get your employees working

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on purpose. This is Working on
Purpose with doctor Elise Cortes. To reach

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00:32:30.160 --> 00:32:35.799
our program today or open a conversation
with Alise, send an email to Aleise

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00:32:36.359 --> 00:32:49.240
Alise at elisecortes dot com. Now
back to working on Purpose. Thanks for

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staying with us, and welcome back
to working on Purpose. I mentioned after

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at the first break about the Grab
Your gusta wellbeing a webcast that I'm doing

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now. This program has actually taken
from my book book with the part one

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of my book which is called Purpose
Ignited, How Inspiring Leaders Ignite passion and

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Elevate Cause, which is now available
on Amazon. And I wrote that book

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like Gabriel was saying before, to
awaken readers to their passion and purpose and

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transform them into inspirational leaders who enliven
the workplace and elevate the contribution of business

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to all its stakeholders. So that's
how the program was derived and created.

406
00:33:19.640 --> 00:33:22.000
If you're just joining us, my
guest today is from Nelson, British Columbia

407
00:33:22.000 --> 00:33:27.119
and Canada. Gabriel Kazan a transformational
men's coach, speaker, writer and thought

408
00:33:27.200 --> 00:33:30.720
leader in the space between mythic imagination
and embodiment. He is currently writing a

409
00:33:30.720 --> 00:33:34.400
book entitled The Wholehearted Man, Unclenched
from Fear, so you can claim purpose

410
00:33:34.440 --> 00:33:37.759
and personal freedom with balls, backbone
and heart. I'm your host, doctor

411
00:33:37.839 --> 00:33:40.039
Lee Cortes. So before we go
on to a bit more of this monk

412
00:33:40.079 --> 00:33:43.920
here, let's just grab that fourth
key that you talk about, Gabriel,

413
00:33:44.039 --> 00:33:47.200
that go all in so so important, right, So, committing with your

414
00:33:47.240 --> 00:33:51.799
whole heart is your greatest power to
actualize your purpose and your life, love

415
00:33:51.839 --> 00:33:54.440
and business. You say this all
in quality of commitment and connection with your

416
00:33:54.480 --> 00:34:00.000
heart and your knowledge of who you
are acts as your primordial inner company.

417
00:34:00.039 --> 00:34:07.960
That's so great. Well, yeah, the king, right, the sovereign

418
00:34:08.079 --> 00:34:13.199
at the center of the psyche,
so to speak. Is how I think

419
00:34:13.239 --> 00:34:16.920
of these mythic, mythopoetic terms like
the king. You could also call it

420
00:34:16.960 --> 00:34:22.320
the captain. You know. For
men, it's that inner one in charge,

421
00:34:22.840 --> 00:34:29.559
the central emanating decision maker. And
there's a different aspects to it.

422
00:34:29.599 --> 00:34:36.760
There's the ceo, there's the hustler, the drive, you know, there's

423
00:34:36.920 --> 00:34:45.360
the desire, the longing, and
you know, either way, it's always

424
00:34:45.400 --> 00:34:52.840
a heart centered place because from from
the teachings that I work with is the

425
00:34:52.920 --> 00:34:58.360
mind is a great servant, but
we can't let it be in charge.

426
00:34:58.719 --> 00:35:04.119
It's got to serve of something down
here that we're listening to. That's actually

427
00:35:04.159 --> 00:35:09.639
where the true power is. And
when yeah, usually in times of you

428
00:35:09.639 --> 00:35:15.119
know, life or death circumstances,
we come into a certain clarity around what's

429
00:35:15.199 --> 00:35:22.000
really important. And it's the heart
that's making all the big decisions. And

430
00:35:23.119 --> 00:35:30.920
that's why it's so important to do
that wakefully and align heart with will and

431
00:35:30.519 --> 00:35:36.440
all the whole sword. What I
do with my clients is we talk about

432
00:35:36.480 --> 00:35:40.280
the sword as the midline of the
body. And for a lot of men,

433
00:35:40.880 --> 00:35:45.960
collapse, depression, addiction, or
default purpose will have a man not

434
00:35:46.119 --> 00:35:52.400
willing to pick up his sword and
wield his personal power to create. We're

435
00:35:52.440 --> 00:35:55.760
designed to create. We're designed to
provide, to provoke, to create,

436
00:35:57.159 --> 00:36:04.239
to make things, make things more
free. So picking up the sword is

437
00:36:04.480 --> 00:36:10.599
about warrioring up to protect that king
and to take direction from that place.

438
00:36:12.480 --> 00:36:17.119
So that's a little you know on
the inner king. But it takes it

439
00:36:17.159 --> 00:36:22.719
takes giving oneself permission to go there. And and you know, for women

440
00:36:22.760 --> 00:36:29.840
it might be the queen. But
working with these powers, this is these

441
00:36:29.840 --> 00:36:34.679
are coded into our psyches. You
know, through fairy tales we need to

442
00:36:35.519 --> 00:36:37.800
There's a line from I think it's
C. S. Lewis that says,

443
00:36:37.800 --> 00:36:43.360
when you're old enough again, you
will listen to fairy tales again. Oh

444
00:36:43.440 --> 00:36:46.480
I love that. I've never heard
that before, But I love that stories

445
00:36:46.480 --> 00:36:50.480
are so important. That's one of
the reasons I'm a story catcher, and

446
00:36:50.519 --> 00:36:53.440
I love that so well. This
idea of the king and going all in.

447
00:36:53.519 --> 00:36:55.920
One of the things that, of
course we both know that can get

448
00:36:55.920 --> 00:37:00.360
in the way of that is shame. And one of the things that you

449
00:37:00.400 --> 00:37:02.000
talk about that I was very very
drawn to. It's this notion of shame

450
00:37:02.079 --> 00:37:07.719
shifting and This is so important ladies
and gentlemen to listen to and really get

451
00:37:07.719 --> 00:37:09.960
your arms around or even start to
investigate. But the way you say it,

452
00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:13.920
Gabriel, which I appreciated, You
say, shame is a deep feeling

453
00:37:13.960 --> 00:37:16.760
of being unworthy that can be lodged
in the tissue and energy systems of the

454
00:37:16.760 --> 00:37:22.159
body. Shame can be frozen into
the muscle memory in a freeze response.

455
00:37:22.480 --> 00:37:25.679
You say you teach three movements for
shifting, healing shame, and shatter the

456
00:37:25.679 --> 00:37:31.360
trans of unworthiness through your chosen embodiment. Practice is the opportunity shame is fascinating

457
00:37:31.400 --> 00:37:42.119
and it's very powerful. Yeah,
yeah, and I think to get you

458
00:37:42.159 --> 00:37:46.400
know, it's different than guilt just
to you know, identify guilt being more

459
00:37:46.480 --> 00:37:52.000
like I did something bad, and
then shame is like when I am bad

460
00:37:52.199 --> 00:37:55.559
or I've internalized the belief that I
am bad and somehow not not worthy.

461
00:37:58.360 --> 00:38:06.239
And so shame shifting is I say, it's warrior work because it's deep and

462
00:38:06.280 --> 00:38:10.719
it requires the precision of truth,
which is that blade that's going to cut

463
00:38:10.719 --> 00:38:15.760
away the lies, which if we
have a false belief of self that I'm

464
00:38:16.000 --> 00:38:22.360
flawed or unworthy. It takes that
kind of courage to cut that away.

465
00:38:22.400 --> 00:38:29.519
It's like a form of psychic surgery. So it happens best in relationship,

466
00:38:29.719 --> 00:38:35.840
So having a mentor or a facilitator
or a group to work through these deeper

467
00:38:36.800 --> 00:38:42.679
places and saying what needs to be
said. Because shame is insidious. It

468
00:38:42.719 --> 00:38:46.400
has a freeze response, and I
think of it in terms of freezing like

469
00:38:46.760 --> 00:38:53.920
an iceberg or an Arctic ice sheet
across the ocean, and the nervous system

470
00:38:53.920 --> 00:39:00.000
will shut down and it breeds in
silence. So not talking about that thing

471
00:39:01.480 --> 00:39:05.400
puts a layer of shame on top
of the shame, and then it can

472
00:39:05.480 --> 00:39:16.239
grow like a scab. So cutting
in with presence, penetration and claiming a

473
00:39:16.320 --> 00:39:25.400
space for asserting truth is a way
to break those ice sheets. And I

474
00:39:25.519 --> 00:39:32.639
have a moodro where my fingertips are
together at my midline, and this represents

475
00:39:32.679 --> 00:39:37.159
like a little tugboat that goes in
front of the oil tankers and the Arctic

476
00:39:37.199 --> 00:39:42.559
ocean, and the tugboat has to
break the ice. So for me,

477
00:39:42.679 --> 00:39:50.599
that assert asserting into the frozen places
takes that kind of heart courage to break

478
00:39:50.639 --> 00:39:55.599
through the frozen places and to let
the truth through. So that's one kind

479
00:39:55.639 --> 00:40:05.280
of image and movement of shifting shame
really just going from silence to sharing and

480
00:40:05.800 --> 00:40:12.719
from contempt for the self to compassion
for the self. Yeah. I was

481
00:40:12.800 --> 00:40:16.880
just listening to ted talk today by
Peter Sage, whose work I quite admire,

482
00:40:16.920 --> 00:40:20.320
and he was also talking about this
notion and where it is that we

483
00:40:20.320 --> 00:40:22.000
pick up this shame early in life. And it might have been something very

484
00:40:22.000 --> 00:40:27.079
just simple that one of our parents
just said something when they were having frustrated

485
00:40:27.159 --> 00:40:29.840
day, and we took that to
be the truth and we've kept that all

486
00:40:29.840 --> 00:40:32.599
these years. But that's why all
the more reason that, however, we

487
00:40:32.639 --> 00:40:37.000
get to that when you're talking about
ways to access this but first and foremost,

488
00:40:37.079 --> 00:40:38.000
and this is what we talked about
before, which I think is so

489
00:40:38.039 --> 00:40:42.880
important. You say asking for help
is a power move, and I think

490
00:40:42.920 --> 00:40:46.800
that is just profoundly fantastic and just
right to the point. And you say

491
00:40:46.840 --> 00:40:51.800
feeling your pain and having it seen
and contained with empathic witnessing as a way

492
00:40:51.840 --> 00:40:58.119
to tend your wounds. Yes,
yeah, sometimes it does need a set

493
00:40:58.159 --> 00:41:02.559
of outside eyes to just see it
and release that energy. And that I

494
00:41:02.599 --> 00:41:06.800
mean that happens in the therapy room, but it also happens in personal growth

495
00:41:06.840 --> 00:41:13.800
and in coaching work just as much
when we can see the stuck places,

496
00:41:13.920 --> 00:41:17.719
see the wounds, the broken parts, and then just bless them. Just

497
00:41:17.840 --> 00:41:22.000
go Okay, that's that's there.
And then what's the next step? You

498
00:41:22.039 --> 00:41:27.719
know, how do I move that
energy bio energetically, Just keep moving forward

499
00:41:29.440 --> 00:41:34.239
and and you know, not not
to the denial of that tenderness. And

500
00:41:34.280 --> 00:41:38.639
we need both. We need fierceness
and tenderness both in an integrated way.

501
00:41:39.280 --> 00:41:44.639
Mm hmmmmm. You know. I
I there's a reason that I host a

502
00:41:44.719 --> 00:41:47.039
radio show and that I speak five
different languages, and that I've written a

503
00:41:47.039 --> 00:41:50.639
book. I love words, right, I love language, and you have

504
00:41:50.679 --> 00:41:53.199
a beautiful way of using language,
Gabriel. So I have to go on

505
00:41:53.199 --> 00:41:55.800
to another thing that you send her
that I thought was so great. You

506
00:41:55.840 --> 00:42:00.000
said, getting in, getting in
touch with emotions and moving through that through

507
00:42:00.079 --> 00:42:02.800
our bodies is so necessary and healthy. And you say, acting in honor

508
00:42:02.840 --> 00:42:07.159
of the greatest sense of loss and
allowing tears to flow and set wet,

509
00:42:07.280 --> 00:42:10.639
set wet on the cheeks, tears
off of sea beetter. The grieving man

510
00:42:10.760 --> 00:42:15.880
is most in touch with his bone
memory as grief pulls him in and down.

511
00:42:17.119 --> 00:42:25.039
Yeah, Yeah, when I first
started getting into the men's work space,

512
00:42:25.679 --> 00:42:30.639
I had a mentor bring that up. You know that there's a taboo

513
00:42:30.679 --> 00:42:36.360
around male vulnerability, right, we're
taught. If there's one thing that is

514
00:42:36.480 --> 00:42:40.760
unique to the male mode of shame, is that we're taught to not show

515
00:42:40.800 --> 00:42:46.159
weakness. Yes, you know,
and women have a different shame experience.

516
00:42:47.079 --> 00:42:51.880
But to not be able to show
weakness is such a wound, such an

517
00:42:51.880 --> 00:42:55.039
incredible wound. So I had this
mentor talk about, you know, the

518
00:42:55.079 --> 00:42:59.519
importance of weeping in a circle of
men. And you know, we can

519
00:42:59.559 --> 00:43:04.679
easily get a cliche about it or
stereotypical, but when a man can let

520
00:43:04.760 --> 00:43:09.559
his tears fall on his cheeks and
wear them on his cheeks like with pride,

521
00:43:10.199 --> 00:43:14.519
to me, that's a power.
That's a powerful man. Yeah,

522
00:43:15.079 --> 00:43:22.400
because he's he's in touch with that. The power of grief is such that

523
00:43:22.480 --> 00:43:27.320
it shows us what we love,
It shows us what matters to us.

524
00:43:27.559 --> 00:43:31.400
Yes, so to grieve is also
to praise. So to be in touch

525
00:43:31.440 --> 00:43:36.760
with grief is to be close with
that source of what the heart loves.

526
00:43:37.519 --> 00:43:40.519
And that's why, you know,
of all the male archetypes, they talk

527
00:43:40.639 --> 00:43:46.000
warrior, king, lover, magician. When Robert Bly wrote Iron John,

528
00:43:46.079 --> 00:43:55.039
he wrote in a couple of pivotal
archetypes that men need beyond those four and

529
00:43:55.119 --> 00:44:00.719
one is the trickster, and the
other is the grief because that's the one

530
00:44:00.719 --> 00:44:05.840
that's gone all the way down to
the bottom of the of the water and

531
00:44:05.880 --> 00:44:10.199
the mud and then returned up like
a phoenix from the flame, you know,

532
00:44:10.320 --> 00:44:16.079
with with depth. So I guess
in the purpose coaching work I do,

533
00:44:16.320 --> 00:44:24.199
it's all about purpose oriented growth which
is connected to the very bottom realm,

534
00:44:25.239 --> 00:44:28.559
very bottom of the realm, which
is to me, the grief man,

535
00:44:28.639 --> 00:44:34.440
the ashes, the coals as well
as the flames and the you know,

536
00:44:34.480 --> 00:44:37.559
the mountaintops that we can we can
achieve, but we need to go

537
00:44:37.639 --> 00:44:40.840
both. We need to go deep
so that we can go wide. So

538
00:44:40.880 --> 00:44:45.320
beautiful. Yeah, One of the
one of the many things I appreciate about

539
00:44:45.320 --> 00:44:47.920
you, Gabriel is I love your
depth of soul. I love your depth

540
00:44:47.960 --> 00:44:51.639
of person, your death of expression. And one of the things that you

541
00:44:51.719 --> 00:44:53.519
also cite in your in your ebook, which I think is beautiful. This

542
00:44:53.559 --> 00:44:57.960
is a passage by Francis Weller that
gets us as we're getting to the end

543
00:44:57.960 --> 00:45:00.320
of the show here that is a
nice way for us to kind of this

544
00:45:00.360 --> 00:45:04.679
all home. You quote him as
saying, we are all preparing for our

545
00:45:04.719 --> 00:45:07.000
own disappearance, our one last breath. It is difficult to pick up this

546
00:45:07.039 --> 00:45:10.119
thread and hold it in our hand. Each of us has faded to leave

547
00:45:10.159 --> 00:45:14.719
this shining world, to slip off
this elegant coat of skin, to release

548
00:45:14.760 --> 00:45:19.880
our stories to the wind and return
our bones to the earth. That's so

549
00:45:20.039 --> 00:45:22.079
alluringly beautiful. And it gets to
purpose, it gets to being intentional,

550
00:45:22.239 --> 00:45:30.719
it gets to be going all in. It's beautiful. Yeah. Yeah.

551
00:45:30.559 --> 00:45:39.599
Francis work bringing the relevance of grief
into back to the world has been remapping

552
00:45:39.639 --> 00:45:50.960
the territory with his revival of grief
rituals and the transformation of that. I

553
00:45:50.960 --> 00:45:58.840
actually have another poem from that book
of Francis Weller's that I'd love to share.

554
00:46:00.159 --> 00:46:01.679
I could tear it right now.
Yeah, if it's short, you

555
00:46:01.679 --> 00:46:06.840
bet, like about thirty seconds or
a minute. It's Rashaani Ray from It's

556
00:46:06.840 --> 00:46:10.079
called The Unbroken. There's an There's
a brokenness, out of which comes the

557
00:46:10.199 --> 00:46:15.440
unbroken, a shatteredness, out of
which blooms the unshatterable. There is a

558
00:46:15.480 --> 00:46:21.119
sorrow beyond all grief, which leads
to joy and a fragility, out of

559
00:46:21.119 --> 00:46:25.320
whose depths emerges strength. There's a
hall of space, too vast for words,

560
00:46:25.400 --> 00:46:30.760
through which we pass with each loss, out of whose darkness we are

561
00:46:30.800 --> 00:46:35.880
sanctified into being. There is a
cry deeper than all sound, whose serrated

562
00:46:36.119 --> 00:46:40.480
edges cut the heart as we break
open to the place inside which is unbreakable

563
00:46:40.519 --> 00:46:47.280
and whole while learning to sing.
Oh, that is stunning again. I

564
00:46:47.280 --> 00:46:50.960
appreciate again this kind of study for
me. Right, there's so much,

565
00:46:51.000 --> 00:46:53.159
there's so much richness to it,
and it goes on and on and on.

566
00:46:53.199 --> 00:46:55.440
I don't see that there's an end
to this. So this is how

567
00:46:55.440 --> 00:46:59.599
I'm dedicating my life. We are
at the end of the show, Gabriel,

568
00:46:59.679 --> 00:47:01.320
So you know, the show is
listening to people up by people all

569
00:47:01.360 --> 00:47:05.320
over the world who really want to
be able to create lives of meaning,

570
00:47:05.400 --> 00:47:07.639
do something that matters with their lives
and help create a world where we all

571
00:47:07.639 --> 00:47:09.880
want to live and do our best. What do you want to leave them

572
00:47:09.920 --> 00:47:21.400
with? I guess I just want
to leave them with courage. You know

573
00:47:22.000 --> 00:47:27.199
you got this, you can do
it, and just speak your truth and

574
00:47:27.280 --> 00:47:31.519
one step forward at a time.
Yeah, The world needs your gifts,

575
00:47:31.960 --> 00:47:37.559
so only you can do it.
Though no one's coming to save you.

576
00:47:38.559 --> 00:47:42.079
Yeah, and you might need some
help along the way, but it is

577
00:47:42.320 --> 00:47:45.119
it's for you, and I think
that's a beautiful way to close. Gabriel,

578
00:47:45.159 --> 00:47:47.840
thank you and thank you for being
willing to come on the show and

579
00:47:47.920 --> 00:47:52.039
share your gifts with us and what
you're doing to help unlock purpose and men

580
00:47:52.079 --> 00:47:53.480
across the world. I think it's
just beautiful work, so so important.

581
00:47:53.519 --> 00:47:57.119
And by the way, men,
to me, a man who can cry

582
00:47:57.800 --> 00:48:02.280
is hopelessly irresistible and very sexy.
If you want to learn more about Gabriel

583
00:48:02.320 --> 00:48:06.159
and his work, go to his
website. It's Gabriel kazon dot com.

584
00:48:06.320 --> 00:48:09.840
Let me spell that for you g
A B R I E L and then

585
00:48:09.880 --> 00:48:15.119
kazan is k E c z A
N Gabriel Kazon dot com. And thanks

586
00:48:15.119 --> 00:48:19.360
again to our partnering sponsor, work
Proud, which helps companies build a platform

587
00:48:19.400 --> 00:48:22.039
where your workforce receives meaningful feedback and
thanks for their work from people across your

588
00:48:22.079 --> 00:48:24.719
company. Last week, if you
missed the live show, you can always

589
00:48:24.760 --> 00:48:29.599
catch it be recorded podcast. We
were on the air with Marco Boogers talking

590
00:48:29.639 --> 00:48:34.079
about the dynamic approach to teamwork called
holocracy. Next week will be on the

591
00:48:34.079 --> 00:48:37.039
air with Jared Pope of Workshield,
talking about the work he and his team

592
00:48:37.079 --> 00:48:40.320
due to support cultures where people are
heard and conflicts are quickly resolved. See

593
00:48:40.360 --> 00:48:43.440
you there. Remember that work is
at least or third or life. So

594
00:48:43.599 --> 00:48:52.440
let's work on purpose. We hope
you've enjoyed this week's program. Be sure

595
00:48:52.440 --> 00:48:55.760
to tune in to Working on Purpose, featuring your host, doctor Elise Cortes,

596
00:48:57.079 --> 00:49:00.920
each week on the Voice America Empowerment
Channel. Together, we'll create a

597
00:49:00.960 --> 00:49:08.639
world where business operates conscientiously, leadership
inspires impassioned performance, and employees are fulfilled

598
00:49:08.679 --> 00:49:13.840
in work that provides the meaning and
purpose They crave. See you there,

599
00:49:14.320 --> 00:49:15.760
Let's work on Purpose.